Dear Colleagues:

            First, I wish to gratefully acknowledge the hard work of the Provost, the President and the Board in committing the College to make real improvements in faculty salaries.  The three-year commitment of making Hendrix faculty salaries 12th (out of 16 ACS schools) that was announced at our last Faculty meeting represent a genuine improvement and an important step in the right direction.  

Secondly, I feel obligated to remind our Community that this commitment was not part of the Faculty Salary Taskforce recommendations.  We recommended that:

 

1. Average Hendrix faculty salary be raised to an amount equal to or greater than the average of the ?Group of 25? (defined by the median) by rank, within the next year or two, and with no reduction in the current fringe benefits.

2. Average Hendrix faculty salary be raised to and maintained at an amount equal to or greater than the average of the ACS (defined by the median) by rank, within the next five years, and with no reduction in the current fringe benefits.

 

In my view, the College has made a serious and good faith effort in achieving recommendation 1, and the Administration deserves to be congratulated.  However, the goal of moving Hendrix faculty salaries from 15th to 12th in the ACS was not part of the taskforce?s recommendation.  Instead, we recommended that Hendrix salaries be raised to be the average of the ACS, as defined by the median.  This implies that we would become the 9th not the 12th in the ACS.  We have for years compared ourselves to our peers, which several Administrations chose to define as the ACS.  Does anyone recall any other case where our goal was to move up to the bottom third of the ACS.  To the Board?s credit, this new goal means a movement out of the bottom quartile, but only barely.  

            Third, let me point out some number spinning/manipulation in the presentation that we were shown at the Faculty Meeting.  The ACS is not the ACS*, which apparently omits the two highest paying schools, Washington and Lee and Richmond.  This is not a fair or a valid redefinition of our peer group.  The President believes that Washington and Lee and Richmond are disqualified to be members of the ACS because they have professional schools (to comment about what this makes our Accounting MA would only be distracting).  However, this issue is entirely irrelevant from a rigorous mathematical perspective.  The median is the ?middle-most? number (arranged in order).  The median salary of the ACS cannot possibly be affected even if the Boards of Washington and Lee, Richmond, and the next five highest paying schools in the ACS decided to give a million dollar raise to each and every faculty members, every year, just because they are doing such a good job. 

            Lastly, since when are the worst of a particular group labeled ?1? and the second worst (Hendrix) labeled ?2??  By this measure, I guess that Michigan and Notre Dame are number 1 and number 2 (or is it the other way around) among all major college football programs this year.  Boy, will their alumnae be happy to hear this!  Thus, I have un-spun the Board?s goal of achieving the fifth worst pay among the ACS to the more honest equivalent?12th highest salary among all of the ACS (not the ACS*) schools.   

 

Respectfully and Sincerely

 

Tom

 

 

 

T.D. Stanley, Professor of 

   Economics and Business

 

